Mary Beth Hurt, the Tony-nominated actress whose stunning performances graced the screens of such films as "Interiors," "Six Degrees of Separation," "Chilly Scenes of Winter," and "The World According to Garp," passed away on Saturday in New Jersey, following her diagnosis with Alzheimer's disease in 2015. Her husband, the filmmaker Paul Schrader, shared his first thoughts on her demise in a poignant Facebook post, where he has long voiced his unfiltered opinions on life, film, and his Hollywood journey.
"NOVEMBER 23, 1978. My father meticulously kept a daily journal with meticulously printed entries. On Thanksgiving that year, he wrote simply, 'Joan died 12:20 am.' Nothing more. Joan was his wife and my mother. He was a man of few words. Over the years, I've often gazed at this entry and wondered how I would feel in his shoes. Now, I'm standing in those shoes," Schrader wrote on Monday afternoon.
It was the first time he had publicly shared his thoughts about his long-time wife since her passing. They had married in Chicago in August 1983 and had two children together, Molly and Sam. Together, they collaborated on four films directed by Schrader: "Light Sleeper" (1992), "Affliction" (1997), "The Walker" (2007), and "Adam Resurrected" (2008). Since Hurt's diagnosis, Schrader had been her primary caregiver, even relocating to The Coterie, an assisted living facility in New York City, to be near her.
Their daughter, Molly, paid tribute to her mother on Instagram. "Yesterday morning, we lost my mom, Mary Beth, to Alzheimer's after a decade-long battle with the disease. She was an actress, a wife, a sister, a mother, an aunt, a friend—and she embraced all these roles with grace and a kind ferocity. Although we're grieving, there is some comfort in knowing she is no longer suffering and is reunited with her sisters in peace," she wrote.
